Good deeds are order of the day for AME missionary volunteers

Updated 2:38 pm, Friday, February 28, 2014

From hosting a "hobo breakfast" for the homeless to sorting food at a Houston food pantry, volunteers from Houston-area African Methodist Episcopal churches will spread good deeds through the region Saturday as part of the second annual AME Cares missionary outreach.

"Every church picks its project. Every community has its own personality and its own needs," said Stan McKenzie, missionary director the AME's District 10, a geographic region encompassing 300 churches in Texas. "When I came to the district office, everything being done was for its own church. I felt we should look outside our four walls and do something for somebody else."

The Rev. Salatheia Bryant-Honors, pastor of Houston's Brown Chapel AME, said about 10 volunteers from her congregation will join those from four other churches to sort foodstuffs at the Houston Food Bank. At Willis, volunteers from Mount Pilgrim AME will host a tea party at a Conroe nursing home.

"We'll have non-sugar and not so non-sugar pastries, fruit and flavored teas," that church's missionary society president Shamra Hodge said. "I would hope that it spurs the members of my church to be a little more receptive to serving seniors in our community."

Wylie Thompson, president of the AME's Texas Conference, a southeast Texas area with about 40 churches, said AME Cares Day is only the most visible expression of the church's faith in action. "We have missions to the community all year long," she said.

Thompson's church, Union Bethel AME also will work at the Houston Food Bank. Other projects include a breakfast for the homeless hosted by Galveston's Shiloh AME.

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